Nature-based solutions for flooding
I started my post-doc at the University of Vermont in May 2024.
Two months later, the "Great Vermont Flood" struck the state, where between 3 and 9 inches of rainfall fell in just 48 hours.
Read more at the National Weather Service's meteorological summary of the event here.
This event has been devastating for communities: many homes, businesses, farms, and cars were flooded, there were widespread road closures, and two fatalities.
Photo Credit: UVM Spatial Analysis Lab
While many organizations are helping Vermonters recover from this specific flooding event, my post-doc has been all about how we can address flood risk long-term.
Flooding events are increasing in frequency across the United States due to a combination of urban development, wetland and floodplain loss, and changing climates.
Communities have traditionally relied on grey infrastructure like dams, flood walls, and levees to protect themselves from flooding. However, these solutions are not 100% effective, can have high maintenance costs, and can degrade the surrounding environment including decreasing biodiversity.
Luckily, we have other options besides grey infrastructure solutions if communities are willing to try something new. "Nature-based solutions" incorporate natural systems to address challenges, like flooding. Nature-based solutions for flooding can include restoring or conserving riparian wetlands and reconnecting streams to their historic floodplains.
These solutions can also have ample benefits beyond flood mitigation like increasing carbon storage to help slow the effects of climate change, enhancing water quality by using plants and sedimentation to filter pollutants, and increasing habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species.
This past year, I helped design and implement two national surveys, one for the general public and one for emergency managers that questioned what people knew about nature-based solutions and what barriers may be slowing or preventing their implementation.
While we're still recruiting participants for the manager survey, the public survey has been completed and I recently presented findings from this work at the CIROH Developer's Conference in Salt Lake City, UT. I will also be presenting similar work at AGU's WaterSciCon in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN at the end of June! Check out my poster below.
To summarize, our key findings were that:
Over 40 % of survey participants were unaware that riparian wetlands and connected floodplains (i.e., nature-based solutions) can help mitigate flooding. This is a huge knowledge gap that researchers, practitioners, and wetland enthusiasts can do more to address.
Many participants did, however, know of some of the other benefits that riparian wetlands and floodplains can provide like increased biodiversity and enhanced water quality, which is great!
The participants that were more knowledgeable about nature-based solutions tended to be older and have an advanced degree, which is not surprising, but they also were likely to live in a floodplain and/or have experienced a flood before. After a flood event is probably when people start to hear about potential flood solutions and nature-based solutions are coming up in those conversations, which is great! We also need to be spreading that knowledge to people BEFORE a flood occurs though.
Lastly, we found that more knowledge about nature-based solutions was associated with wanting to invest more public dollars into nature-based solutions. Therefore, getting people up to speed on nature-based solutions can help encourage bottom-up support for their implementation in more communities.
Have I convinced you to learn more about nature-based solutions?? We have submitted this work to a peer-reviewed journal and hope to be sharing that with you soon! In the meantime, you can also look into these resources:
A Resource Guide to Nature-Based Solutions from the White House (President Biden and his administration are big fans)
A Resource Guide from FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency)
A short perspective piece from The Nature Conservancy on the pros and cons of nature-based solutions
If you're also curious about your home's risk of flooding, you can look that up here. Just type in your home address!
Here's hoping for a flood-free summer! Stay safe!
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